Ohio State dumps Spartans, 49-37

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An Ohio State section of Spartan Stadium celebrates behind the Spartan defense after Ohio State scored to go up 41-24 over MSU early in the 4th quarter of their game Saturday November 8, 2014 at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal

Ohio State quarterback JT Barrett (right) passes for a 1st down while under pressure by Marcus Rush (44) of MSU late in the 1st quarter of their game Saturday. Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal

Keith Mumphrey (25) of MSU runs over Gareon Conley of Ohio State and into the endzone for a touchdown early in the 1st quarter of their game at Spartan Stadium. Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal

MSU Football Head Coach Mark Dantonio (center) looks on as an official charges MSU with holding that nullified a Jeremy Langford touchdown run with 3:40 remaining in the 2nd quarter of their game with Ohio State. Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal

Josiah Price (82) of MSU can't secure a pass in the Ohio State endzone while being defended by Curtis Grant (right) of Ohio State with 3:35 remaining in the 2nd quarter. The incompletion forced a 4th and 13 during which MSU would miss a field goal. Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal

Michael Thomas (right) of Ohio State runs through a tackle attempt by Darian Hicks (2) of MSU with 3:19 remaining in the 2nd quarter of their game Saturday. Thomas would take the ball 79 yards for a touchdwon after breaking free of Hicks. Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal

MSU quarterback Connor Cook (18) passes to teammate Jeremy Langford for an apparent 1st down in the 4th quarter of the Spartans' game with Ohio State. The play was nullified by a holding call. Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal

An Ohio State fan holds a sign that asks the question everyone will be asking after the MSU loss and elimination from the hunt, "Who will be in the College Football Playoff?" Saturday. Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING – Michigan State fans can stop checking the College Football Playoff standings, dreaming about championships, making plans to be in Indianapolis on the first weekend of December.

A stadium full of them Saturday saw the team that will be there on Dec. 6 instead – barring an improbable collapse in the final three games of the season, it'll be the resurgent and redeemed Ohio State Buckeyes. They engineered a dramatic momentum reversal late in the first half, torched MSU's defense with big plays all night and rolled to a 49-37 win in the Big Ten's alleged game of the year.

"Let's face it," MSU coach Mark Dantonio said after his team lost its first Big Ten game and home game since 2012, "the bottom line was, we didn't stop them, we couldn't stop them."

No. 13 OSU (8-1, 5-0 Big Ten) earned the revenge it has craved since losing 34-24 to MSU in last season's Big Ten title game in Indianapolis, riding the excellence of freshman quarterback J.T. Barrett (300 yards and three touchdowns passing, 86 yards and two touchdowns rushing) to a throttling of No. 7 MSU (7-2, 4-1) in front of 76,409 at Spartan Stadium.

"We knew we had to come in here and take their will away," said OSU running back Ezekiel Elliott, who ran for 154 yards and two touchdowns, then took to Twitter after the game to get some shots in at the Spartans.

"This is one for the ages," Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said. "That's how much respect we had for our opponent going into it. We saw what they did. They had one loss and were actually winning that game until it got away from them somehow out in Oregon. We played a top-10 team and we really played our best and on the road."

So unless OSU loses two of its final three games – at Minnesota, Indiana and Michigan at home – it will represent the new Big Ten East in the championship game. And its fans now have more reason to check the next CFP rankings Tuesday.

The Spartans? It says something about what Mark Dantonio has done that they could end up with 10 wins and a Florida bowl game and be depressed about it.

But in the two biggest games of the season for the defending Big Ten and Rose Bowl champs, the dominant defense of last season was nowhere to be found. Just as Oregon did in a 46-27 comeback win over MSU on Sept. 6, Ohio State exploited a secondary that hasn't been able to make up for the losses of Darqueze Dennard and Isaiah Lewis.

"They did a heck of a job coaching them and J.T. Barrett was on fire," MSU defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi said of the Buckeyes after his defense gave up the most points it has yielded since a 49-7 Capital One Bowl loss to Alabama in 2011. "Did he have an incomplete pass today? I don't know if he threw one, maybe that one at the end. They did a great job executing, we didn't do a great job executing, I obviously didn't do a great job coaching and getting them prepared."

This looked like it was going MSU's way late in the second quarter, when Jeremy Langford (137 yards, three touchdowns) appeared to give the Spartans a two-touchdown lead on an 11-yard scoring run.

It was called back for a holding on Jack Allen. MSU's Michael Geiger hooked an attempt from 39 yards, his fourth straight miss. And Michael Thomas took a short pass from Barrett on the next play, ran through a Darian Hicks tackle attempt and was gone for a 79-yard touchdown to make it 21-21.

OSU got another touchdown in the half and didn't stop scoring. And MSU still doesn't have a home win over the Buckeyes since 1999.

From the start, the offenses were in charge. Ohio State drove down the field but missed a 47-yard field goal. MSU got in fast for its first touchdown – a 44-yard bomb from Connor Cook (career-high 358 yards, two touchdowns passing) to Keith Mumphery, leading to a 15-yard catch and run for a Mumphery touchdown. He beat Gareon Conley on the bomb, ran over him on the touchdown.

OSU responded with an Elliott 47-yard outside run leading to a Barrett 5-yard score. MSU's Chris Frey jumped on a punt that went off the leg of OSU receiver Jeff Greene, and Langford ran through a huge hole for a 33-yard score on the next play. Barrett responded with a 43-yard bomb to Devin Smith, on Hicks, on a third-and-23, leading to a Barrett scoring plunge on a fourth-and-1.

MSU's offense provided the ideal answer. The Spartans went 66 yards in 14 plays, eating 7:50 off the clock and getting runs from Cook to convert three third downs. Langford punched it in.

Then MSU's Jon Reschke forced a Dontre Wilson fumble on the ensuing kickoff. Spartan Stadium roared. It appeared Langford got in three plays later … but the game broke the other way, sharply, instead.

MSU drove for a field goal to start the second half, but OSU sandwiched forceful touchdown drives around a doomed fourth-and-5 run for MSU's Nick Hill from the Ohio State 35. It was 42-24 early in the fourth when MSU got one back on a Cook pass to Josiah Price with 9:15 left, but OSU came right back down the field for the touchdown to make the rest of the time garbage time.

"It's a game, it's disappointment," Dantonio said. "Had big hopes in this football game. Great stage, great environment, great fans. Everything you want in a college football game. I thought it was a great game. But at the end of the day we don't get what we wanted and sometimes that's the way life is."